Monks Hall ......... another bit of history about to be revealed........... the day Andy Robertson wandered into Eccles nu 2

So here is a place I never knew existed.  

It’s Monks Hall in Eccles and is another of those pictures that Andy Robertson took on his trip round Eccles.

And right at the outset I have confess all I know about the place comes from Salford Online and in deference to the research done by Tony Flynn I shall just skim the history of the place and direct you to his post.*

But as I have started I shall continue, there may be links to the Tudor period and perhaps even earlier.

By the early 19th century there was a farmhouse on the spot which was modernized and extended becoming the home of a father and son medical practice.

Dr Sidley sold the property to Eccles Council in 1959 for £7,155 and it opened as a museum in 1961.

At which point I bet there will be loads of people who remember wandering around the place.

But it closed in the 1980s was briefly a restaurant from 1997 to 2002 and then stood empty and forlorn till it was ravaged by a fire.

Now I can’t claim a personal link but my mate Keith Bradley can, because one of his relatives was the footballer Billy Meredith and during Monks Hall’s time as a museum some of his memorabilia was on display there.

And before I am pulled up for missing one of the big ones, there is the Monks Hall hoard, a hoard of 6,000 medieval coins which were discovered in 1864 close to the boundary wall,

So that pretty much is that, but given my appalling lack of knowledge I bet there will be someone who tells me more.

Well I hope so.

Location; Monks Hall, Eccles

Pictures; Monks Hall, 2016, from the Eccles collection courtesy of Andy Robertson

*Historic Monks Hall Museum, Tony Flynn, Salford Online, June 18, 2013 http://archive.salfordonline.com/salfordvideos_page/43590-video:_historic_monks_hall_museum.html